Welcome to the 22nd issue of Transmissions. This edition marks another new phase in the history of the publication as we migrate to a new digital technology platform provided through the National Library of Australia. This will provide more opportunities for interaction among readers and also give Transmissions and the AFN a much wider profile, national and internationally.

This issue also includes an early call for papers for the 2008 Australian National Folklore Conference. This will be the fourth in the series, co-sponsored by the AFN, the NLA and the National Folk Festival and we look forward to another successful event next Easter.

As well as news and general information Transmissions has often featured substantial articles on aspects of folklore – including the Moe Folklife project, storytelling, roadside memorials and a folkloric analysis of the Cronulla riots. This time we have a fascinating paper by Noeline Kyle and Rob Willis about the Irish influences on the music of Slim Dusty. We hope to publish more articles in the future, building into a substantial online archive. If you would like to submit an article for consideration, or news of a publication, project or event, please email g.seal@curtin.edu.au

The 2008 folklore conference will again be hosted by the National Library of Australia, in partnership with the National Folk Festival and the Australian Folklore Network.

The conference will take place on Thursday March 20 at the NLA.

We now call for expressions of interest in presenting a paper at the conference. The committee will consider proposals on any aspect of Australian folklore. Please email g.seal@curtin.edu.au with your paper title, a brief description of its content and a brief biography.

Noeline Kyle and Rob Willis have kindly given Transmissions permission to publish their paper on the Irish influences on the well-known country music of Slim Dusty (David Gordon Kirkpatrick). Noeline is Slim Dusty’s niece and granddaughter of Billy Kyle, a pivotal figure in the musical traditions of the Nulla. Rob is a collector and AFN affiliate. The paper was presented at the Shamrock in the Bush' gathering at Galong this August.

The Songs My Father Sang to Me:
Irish Influences on the Life and Music of Slim Dusty

Dr Noeline Kyle and Rob Willis

Slim Dusty is Australia’s best-known country music performer. He remainsthe most prolific and biggest-selling recording artist in Australian musical history, with more than seven million of his recordings having been sold on the domestic market. Slim Dusty had a special ability to communicate and toidentify with his audiences, singing the songs that were close to their hearts.

His Irish ancestry contributed to this gift. The Kyle family, who were neighbours at his childhood home at Nulla Nulla Creek, near Kempsey, New South Wales, provided significant musical and cultural influences on Slim in his formative years. The Kyles, too, had a strong Irish background and so did Joy McKean, who became Slim’s wife. These numerous Irish influences in the life and music of Slim Dusty go some way to explaining the creativity and, perhaps, the ambition of the man as well as the success of his music in twentieth century Australia.

Background

‘Slim Dusty’ was born David Gordon Kirkpatrick in the New South Wales mid-north coast town of Kempsey on 13 June 1927. His parents, David and Mary Kirkpatrick, farmed a small property in the then-remote area of Nulla Nulla Creek (the Nulla), located some sixty-four kilometres north of Kempsey. Large grazing properties were staked out along Nulla Nulla Creek in the 1870s. These included ‘Nulla Nulla Station’ belonging to Henry Sauer; the selections of William Schmidt and Christian Pohlman; and those of the Crossman and Toose families. Closer settlement and the rise of small dairy farming had to wait another three decades until the Upper Macleay Co-operative Dairying Company opened at Toorooka in 1906. After taking up modest conditional leases, these early dairy farmers had to begin from scratch—their first task the felling and clearing of large, sometimes dangerous, trees. Long weary days followed with much back-breaking work clearing the timber and rubble. They fenced, and built pig runs, barns, sheds, dairies, cow bails and places of residence. It was slow and arduous work.

By the 1940s, cream production on the Upper Macleay was at its peak with at least 120 registered suppliers to the Co-operative at Toorooka. One out of the first group of properties chosen for dairy farming, just above Henry Sauer's station, was selected by William (Billy) Kyle and his brothers Alexander (Alec) and Edward (Teddy). In the year Billy Kyle selected his land (1905), he married Florence Maude Matilda Rose; they managed to eke out a modest living for another fifty years and reared twelve children.

Three years after Billy and Florence’s marriage, Dave and George Kirkpatrick, the sons of Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick, began farming on land adjoining Billy Kyle’s, beginning a lifelong friendship between the Kirkpatricks and the Kyles. The relationship would foster music, dance and song of a significance that was hardly imaginable from such humble rural beginnings.

The Kirkpatricks

David (Dave) Kirkpatrick and his younger brother George had been on the 'wallaby' for much of the late 1890s and early 1900s. When they finally made their way back to the Macleay Valley in 1908 Dave was twenty-seven and George twenty-one. Their mother Mary (usually known simply as ‘Nurse Kirk’), made the initial conditional purchase in 1906 hoping, no doubt, that this would bring her sons back to a more settled life. Nurse Kirk took time out from her midwifery to live at Nulla Nulla Creek in 1908 and 1909. Perhaps she intended to use the break to help her sons establish their dairy farms.

Dave and George had been bachelors for more than ten years, suffering the various privations of being ‘on the road’. They worked up and down the north coast of New South Wales but, familiar as they were with loneliness, isolation presented a particular challenge and neighbors became doubly important. As the small community of farmers grew, so did their culture of mutual support. In outback Australia neighbors helped each other when food and water became scarce or when poor health or accidents occurred. In this environment, each would give freely to the other when food or funds were short. This was not unusual at the time: isolation and distance had bred the notion of sharing. They shared their lives after work as well—music, song and dance as well as hopes and dreams. Folk gathered around the piano in the front parlour for a hearty singsong, extending a long tradition of community music-making.

Along the Nulla Nulla Creek, however, something unique and more interesting was emerging. In this coastal area, with its rich farming land, lazy rivers and old gnarled gums, the family histories of the Kirkpatricks and Kyles and other families provide some of the clues as to why this should be so.

Although originally Scottish, the Kirkpatricks hailed from Ireland, arriving on the emerald isle with the Ulster Plantation in the 1600s. ‘Nurse’ Mary Kirkpatrick, nee Magee, was the daughter of George Magee and Sarah Black. Born on 2 November 1862 in working-class Bridge End, Ballymacarrett, near the docks in East Belfast, she was the eldest daughter in the family. She had a fine singing voice that remained with her into old age. Mary Magee married Hugh Kirkpatrick in 1880 in the brilliant-red brick Methodist Church that still stands in Albert Bridge Road, Ballymacarrett. Their first child Janet, born a year later, died from meningitis three days after Christmas Day 1882. As she buried Janet, Mary was pregnant with her second child, Dave, who was born at home five months later on 19 May 1883. One year later, with toddler Dave in her arms, twenty-year-old Mary and Hugh walked onto the Cambodia for the long journey to New South Wales.

Mary Kirkpatrick arrived in Kempsey in the late 1890s. By this time she had lost another daughter, given birth to a son, George, and had separated from her husband, Hugh. The family story about the separation relates that Hugh had spent the money saved for the new baby's layette on gambling—so the strong-willed Mary walked out and became a single parent. She never re-married. In the early 1900s Mary trained as a midwife and opened the first private maternity hospital in Kempsey. She continued her work until the late 1930s. Her youngest son, George, was killed in the last stages of World War I at Lagincourt, France. Dave was Mary’s only remaining child. He married Mary Florence Louisa Partridge on 19 October 1914. Four children were born during the war years: Lloyd George on 18 July 1915, Lorna Mary on 18 July 1916, Nelly Jean on 17 January 1918, and Kathleen Clare on 29 November 1919. Lloyd George ('Georgie') died in 1924 from epidemic encephalitis. David Gordon (Slim Dusty) was born on 13 June 1927. His mother was anxious about this new son's health:

... I spent my first few years packed carefully in cotton wool, steered clear of every risk to my health. A small cut or a cold caused my mother so much worry and trauma that one time after I'd got myself into some minor scrape (a blister or was it as devastating as a cut knee?) the resulting fuss made me so pain-stricken I began yelling, 'Am I going to die? Am I going to die?

The young man not only survived to grow to adulthood, but his father Dave—remembered for his speaking and singing skills—taught him songs and stories of Ireland.

Early musical influences from family

The Nulla Nulla valley, with its close-knit community, had strong musical traditions among the hardworking families dotted along the meandering banks of the creek. A large number of its residents, both men and women, could play an instrument or sing. Dances and house parties were held ‘about every week’, with the news of these events spreading up and down the valley via the ‘bush telegraph.' Young Gordon Kirkpatrick (not yet ‘Slim Dusty’) was exposed to all of this music. Indeed, his father Dave Kirkpatrick (called Kirk by the locals) was one of the most sought-after performers.

Slim had vivid memories of his father: ‘He used to sing and play and he had a very loud voice and he could be heard very well. He was very popular at the dances and get-togethers they had’. Family and friends well remember Dave's favourite recitation piece, ‘The man from Ironbark’, delivered with gusto in his inimitable style. Slim wrote in his first autobiography:

Noisy Dan was famous through the district for his witty parodies. He would lay his fiddle down a straightened arm to accompany his songs. Encouraged further, he extended the entertainment to recitations, which he rendered very well, and very loudly.

One of his favourites was Banjo Paterson's 'The Man from Ironbark'—the tale of the havoc caused in a smart-alecky city barber's shop when the barber set to a bushie's stubble with a razor he had deliberately stood in boiling water. The bushy thought his throat had been cut, and I sat there, waiting in delicious anticipation for Dad to shake the china as he flattened the room with his punchline.

He lifted his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with tooth and nail, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And 'MURDER! BLOODY MURDER!' yelled (Noisy Dan as the neighbours reeled) the man from Ironbark.

Individuals interviewed by the authors invariably refer to Dave Kirk's oratory skills, his singing voice and his fiddle-playing. Much of Dave's musical skill had its origins in Ireland and remained fundamentally Irish.

In 1967 Slim made a recording of the songs he remembered from his father, entitled ‘Songs my father sang to me'. Many of these songs have an Irish origin. ‘The old lantern waltz’, a song written by Slim, featured on the same record and reflects his fond memories of the dances on ‘the Nulla’. Many of the people interviewed for the National Library of Australia’s Nulla project have also mentioned Dave Kirk’s talents and his love of Irish music. The late Dooley Waters, who worked for Dave at one time, reminisced about the house parties on the Nulla:

Dave Kirk was the greatest artist of all, Slim’s father. He was the best of all. He could say ‘The Man from Ironbark’ (poem) – or he could come down and sing you the great old Irish songs.

Much of Dave’s musical ability and repertoire had been passed on to him by his mother (Slim’s grandmother), Nurse Mary Kirkpatrick. A friend of the family, Olive Fuller, remembers:

Dave used to sing very well, that’s where Slim Dusty gets his voice from, his father’s side. Old Dave’s mother was an Irish woman and she had a lovely voice. Dave (also) used to recite. Give him a few drinks and he was quite a good entertainer – a two bob entertainer.

Given Dave's oratory, singing and musical ability and his popularity as a performer in his community, he was, perhaps, a little more than a 'two bob entertainer'.

The influence of the Kyles on Slim Dusty's music

The majority of the musical traditions of the Nulla centred on one family, the Kyles, and in particular the Kirkpatrick’s neighbour, fiddler Billy Kyle. Slim came into contact with ‘old Billy Kyle’ at an early age and was strongly influenced by the jigs, reels and other dance tunes of this outstanding musician. Slim remembers:

Our next door neighbours were the Kyles and Billy Kyle, old Billy Kyle—he would play the fiddle all night. They had a knack for playing these old tunes and they could play for hours.

The old fiddler must have had an influence on Slim’s musical direction because Slim later mentions him in at least two of his songs, one of these being ‘Up the Old Nulla Road’:

There was old Billy Kyle with his bush fiddle style.
And he was a band on his own
And the dancers stayed on ‘till the crack of the dawn
Then a jackass would laugh them all home.

The younger Kyles were also expanding their musical interests into the new ‘Hillbilly’ music and it was from Jack Kyle, Billy Kyle’s brother, that Slim purchased his first guitar.

Jack Kyle, one of the neighbouring kids who was about five years older than me, had bought a guitar from a catalogue and was starting to make a bit of a name for himself in the district … Jack figured he was doing well enough to move on to something grander, but to raise the money he first had to unload the mail order instrument.

Slim ended up buying the instrument for ‘thirty bob’.

Jack Kyle, who later performed under the stage name of Clem Rodgers, remembers that there were many barn dances and house parties.

You’d toil all day, go home and out would come the music. We would listen to the records of Hank Williams, Wilf Carter, Jimmy Rogers and Tex Morton a bit later—we started singing at the barn dances.

Jack bought a guitar ‘for about twelve quid’:

Them blokes, Slim and his mates never saw a guitar in their lives until I got one. I really started Slim off.

The Kyles’ music was handed down in an aural tradition over many generations. Those Irish roots begin with Henry Kyle, Billy Kyle's Irish grandfather, who grew up in County Roscommon and County Tipperary. Henry's father was Thomas Kyle, a Protestant, and his mother Mary Rafferty, a Catholic. Mixed religious marriages were customarily solemnised in a Catholic Church and their children were baptised as Catholics. Henry remained a Catholic, although later mixed marriages changed the focus of religion within the family several times.

Henry Kyle had arrived in New South Wales in 1841 and in 1846 he married Esther Sherlock (also Irish and from County Galway) in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. Five children were born before Henry succumbed to consumption. It is the youngest son, Henry, born in 1854 and six years of age when his father died, whose descendents would finally settle along Nulla Nulla Creek. In 1860 Esther re-married, to John Neylan, and the family moved to Murwillumbah. All of the Kyle children married and settled at Murwillumbah except for young Henry. Said to be critical of his new stepfather, young 'Harry' left to work as a sawyer along the Condamine River in Queensland. Here he met and married Mary Ann Weir—by all accounts a good dancer, a good talker and more than a match for this wild bushman! Harry and Mary Ann lived for a time at Hillgrove (near Armidale) before moving to Kempsey in the late 1890s. In photographs Harry Kyle has his fiddle tucked under his chin or holds it by his side. His grandson Vaughan still plays the same fiddle in this traditional manner.

Harry and Mary Ann's daughters Esther (1880–1968) and Eva (1898–1985) were taught piano and could play the accordion. Eva's granddaughter Sue writes that:

It's interesting your older relatives recollection of Eva's musical ability. Mum told me Nan's talent was recognised early but as lessons were expensive her formal instruction was limited. As a child I can remember begging Nan to play for me almost as soon as I arrived in Armidale for the Christmas holidays each year. I had a favourite which I later learned was called ‘Tom Blackman's Waltz’. I loved Mum's stories of Nan and Pop playing at the country dances. Nan played the fiddle, the accordion and the piano.

Grace Partridge, Eva's niece and Billy Kyle's daughter, remembers her Aunt Eva as the best musician of all of the siblings and had what Grace called 'the singing touch.' Eva, Una and Dot (the daughters of Eva) told Noeline Kyle that their mother played the fiddle and piano accordion. They also related how Eva was taught to play as a young woman. Harry's sons Billy, Alec, and George were all musical and learned at their father's knee by listening and watching. None were formally trained but all were talented. Alec could play the fiddle and is often mentioned in oral history interviews.

George was a fine musician, able to play fiddle, mouth organ and button accordion. His son Geoff Kyle remembers that:

The music was so much a part of his childhood … his father told him that Henry 'Harry' Kyle was taught music and could read music, but none of the boys could, George and Billy learnt to play by watching their father, they would sit and watch where he put his fingers and listen and simply because they must have had a good ear for it. Norman, of course, was the only one who didn't play.

[Geoff's] Dad often played with Billy Kyle and … would go to Billy Kyle's place at Basin flat and Billy would be impatiently waiting, they would say 'What you been doing Billy?’, and Billy, with his axe still over his shoulder would say 'Oh, just split 50 posts while I was waiting for yer' … Herb and Alan [sons of Billy Kyle] would play guitar, and Billy Kyle and George and anyone else that was there would just join in with their violins....No one ever hesitated.

It was Billy Kyle, however, who is remembered by so many individuals for his fiddle-playing and his passion for music, sitting with his fiddle tucked under his chin at the local barn dances. And it was Billy Kyle who left a lasting legacy of Irish fiddle-playing that resonates even today.

Other ‘Irish’ qualities of the Kirkpatricks

Apart from Dave Kirk’s musical abilities, other elements of his ‘Irish-ness’ were often mentioned by residents as part of the folklore of the Nulla. Slim had this to say about his father:

Dad had an Irish temper, a loud voice and an awe-inspiring command of swear words delivered at top volume . . . he also played the fiddle, laid down his arm in the old style as he sang his Irish and music hall songs. He recited Lawson and Paterson, also at the top of his voice, and it is no wonder he was known locally as Noisy Dan.

Dave’s ‘Irish’ temper was also referred to, and remembered by, others in the community. Noeline's mother, Kathleen, also remembered her father's rough-and-ready ways and his bad temper. She also remembered a kind and concerned father, who never raised his voice or his hand to his children and who, despite having had little formal education, was a voracious reader of local and national newspapers. From his mother, Nurse Kirkpatrick, Dave inherited a love of good books, passing this on to his children and grandchildren.

Superstitions based on Irish tradition were also handed down in the family and formed a part of the folklore of the Kirkpatrick family. Both Slim and his sister Kathleen were very superstitious: Slim would not have anything green on the stage or in his costumes, considering this bad luck. Joy bought a green top once but it got ‘the heave ho’: Slim would not allow it on stage! He could not believe they called the waiting room at the Opera House the ‘green room’, and thought it very bad luck. This superstition relates back to an old Irish tradition that the ‘little people’ would take you away if you wore too much green. As John Kearney explains:

The use of colour in symbolism and folklore is varied and contradictory. Ireland presents an extreme example. There, green is unlucky so it must not be worn. On the other hand, green is a statement of Irish nationhood so it must be worn (particularly by sporting heroes on the international rugby and soccer fields). This can sometimes be confusing, as one Irishman pointed out: ‘As you probably know, green is our national colour. I have often heard that it was worn as a sign of hope. Perhaps it hasn't brought us much luck.’

How Slim felt about his Irish background

Slim had a strong sense of his Irish background. He mentions these ties in the introduction to his 1996 publication Another day another town, jointly written with wife Joy McKean:

I was walking the streets of Belfast in clear sun and cool wind. I thought I’d be out of place here, but instead I felt quite at home.

It was a long way from Nulla Nulla Creek in Australia, and I couldn’t help wondering what Mary and Hugh Kirkpatrick would have thought about a grandson thumping along Albert Bridge Road in his R.M. Williams boots and Akubra hat turned down in front.

What the blazes was I doing here in the first place?

I had driven into Belfast to find out why I keep thinking of Ireland and to find where my grandparents had actually come from.

In an interview with Mike Hayes, Slim also reminisced:

My grandparents Hugh Kirkpatrick and Mary McGee, they sailed out of Ireland in about 1885and we’ve been back to the church where they were married and had a view of that. It gives you a feeling of that’s where the branch started from. I feel that it is the Scots and Irish influences that gave me the (musical) kick.

Joy McKean also remembers that Slim had a strong sense of his Irish ancestry. He was, for example, very affected by his visit to Ireland. He felt that being Irish was an important part of his make-up and he loved to sing Irish songs. She also noted that he pronounced things in an Irish way, and that this was a part of the distinctive quality of Slim’s singing.

The McKeans and their Irishness

Slim Dusty was supported and guided throughout his career by Joy McKean, a talented song-writer and singer whose influence can be heard in much of Slim’s music. As well, Joy was a pivotal figure, providing vigour and strength in organisation of the Slim Dusty business enterprise. Joy and Slim first hit the road in 1954 in a tiny masonite caravan and ‘Betsy’, an old 1938 Ford. Joy was a major act in their show; a co-driver of old ‘Betsy’; and chief organizer of dates, diaries and country halls—before, during and after the tour. She supported, cared for and nurtured Slim every step of the way. She was still performing that complex role as Slim's career reached its zenith in the early 2000s. Joy has driven the Slim Dusty Foundation since Slim's death in 2004, despite the many demands on her time. The public, politicians and the music industry vie to bask in the glow of Slim Dusty's legend, which she helps to keep alive

Joy's ancestry is also Irish and she has memories of old Irish songs and ditties sung in her family including one from her father, ‘The bald headed end of the broom’:

Love it is a very funny thing
It catches young and old
Just like a dish of boarding house hash
To many a man it's sold
Makes you feel like a fresh water eel
Causes your head to swell
You'll lose your pride
Your love is tried
Empty your pocketbook as well

Chorus: So boys stay away from the girls I say
Give 'em lots of room
'Cause when you're wed they'll beat you 'till you're dead
With the baldheaded end of the broom.

Joy's musical background can be traced through her mother and father. The McKeans hailed from County Tyrone and County Derry, Northern Ireland—territory familiar to the Kyles and the Kirkpatricks. Her grandfather McKean played fiddle. Her father, Silas, played some piano and the mandolin. Her mother, who has some family who came from County Armagh and County Cork (Killeens and Murphys), could play piano accordion. Only Joy and her sister Heather (the McKean Sisters) carried on the family musical tradition. When Joy and Slim married in December 1951, the McKean Sisters were already successful entertainers. University-educated, poised, tough, personable and possessing significant negotiation and decision-making skills, the young Joy McKean would become a centre around which Slim Dusty and his country music career would revolve. It grew beyond their wildest dreams.

Conclusion

Irish music brought with it a sentimental melancholy and nostalgia for a romanticised Irish past. Evocative music helped to sustain those Irish-Australians who eked out a meagre living in a new, harsh, often-unforgiving land. Irish immigrants, arriving as children or young adults, felt the pull of the new as well as longing for the old. By the time Dave Kirk died in 1945 he was ‘Noisy Dan’—reciting an Australian poem in a very Australian style. And there is no doubt this Irish ancestry was significant in shaping the songs of the young Slim Dusty. It is of significance, too, that Slim married an 'Irish' lass whose musical and Irish ancestry could do with closer scrutiny in order to understand and better appreciate it. Of course, there are many other Irish-Australian musical stories that might be told—about the use of the fiddle, the button accordion, the harmonica and the piano—and all have featured in family stories about country Australia. We are sure that elements of Slim Dusty's ancestral music had a lot to do with the sort of man he became. We are also sure that the musical culture and creativity of that small farming community along Nulla Nulla Creek was unique and extraordinary. It all came together finally to produce the man you have glimpsed in this paper.

A trove of previously unpublished Scottish ballads. Available from University Press of Mississippi ($60).

The current issues of the La Trobe Journal of the State Library of Victoria has a valuable descriptive article titled °€A Collection of Oral History, Traditions and Folk Lore in the La Trobe Library°¶, featuring what appears to be much of the important collection of the late Wendy Lowenstein. Available at http://calisto.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-09/t1-g-t2.html

Moonlit road – traditional tales and associated lore. An excellent American website that uses spooky folktales to interest the young, and not-so-young, in folklore. Have a squiz if you dare at: http://www.themoonlitroad.com/welcome001.asp